Review: Spirit Airlines Credit Card

Small first-purchase rewards bonus. You’ll earn 15,000 bonus miles after making just a single purchase with the Spirit Airlines Credit Card. And while Spirit says you can squeeze three roundtrip flights from that sum, as long as you travel outside of peak season for your destination, Spirit miles aren’t worth very much in dollar terms. In fact, each mile is worth only $0.0040 (40% of a penny) on average, according to WalletHub research. So this bonus is worth just $60 or so.

That’s roughly one-tenth of what people with good or excellent credit can get from the market’s best travel rewards credit cards. So this initial bonus definitely isn’t a reason to apply for the Spirit Credit Card.

Disappointing ongoing rewards. You’ll earn 2 miles per $1 spent on most purchases made with the Spirit Air Credit Card. That might sound pretty good, but Spirit miles are worth far less than the penny-plus apiece you’ll get from those competitors. In cash-back terms, you’ll earn just 0.8% back on most purchases.

Sure, the Spirit Card also gives you 5 miles per $1 spent at restaurants participating in the Free Spirit Dining Rewards program. But only nine metro areas have eligible restaurants. And that earning rate still only works out to 2% “cash” back.

Miles expire. If you don’t use your Spirit Credit Card at least once every three months, any unredeemed miles in your account will disappear. That’s an unnecessary hassle you really shouldn’t have to deal with, especially when the rewards in question are nothing special. An expiration date for earnings, particularly for such a short period of inactivity, certainly isn’t standard.

$59 annual fee, starting year two. Annual fees aren’t uncommon on travel rewards credit cards. But you have to view the amount charged in terms of what you’ll get back. And the Spirit Card doesn’t give you enough for the money. Its annual fee is waived for the first year, thankfully. But it costs around 3.4 times as much as the average credit card each year thereafter, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report. You can get a lot more while spending a lot less.

Not the card for carrying a balance. The Spirit Airlines Credit Card doesn’t offer a 0% introductory APR. Its regular rate is likely to be above the average for people who can qualify. And it could be significantly higher, depending on where your credit currently stands. So while we don’t recommending applying for the Spirit Card anyway, you definitely don’t want to do so if you aren’t going to pay your bill in full every month.

Definitely. Once you redeem your miles and use them to purchase a ticket, the credit card account is effectively out of the equation. The ticket is booked, and will remain booked. Keep in mind that you will lose all your unredeemed rewards upon cancellation, so make sure you redeem everything before you close your account.

3.4 out of 5

I signed up to use the Spirit airlines credit card while we were on a Spirit flight. Our family travels frequently and are always looking for good travel deals (i.e. free miles or flights) and the announcement for all the free sign-up miles with the Spirit credit card was too good to pass up. At first we were mainly interested just in the perks of getting the extra bonus sign-up miles, but after our first statement we realized that getting 2 miles for every dollar spent was an excellent perk! At the rate we were racking up miles from our purchases, we figured we could count on at least one domestic trip for 4 each year absolutely free. And that is very good news!We will be using this card for quite a while!

I applied online. I received my 15K bonus miles within 2 weeks of using the card. I was surprised to learn that this card has so many beifits (see the benifits of the world mastercard) Most were not advertised on the spirit air site. I called the Master Card support number 1-800-307-7309, and was given an opportunity to speak with the World Mastercard Concierge, I spoke with someone in benifits and obtained a long list of benifits of the World Mastercard. Here is the link for the World Mastercard benifits:
http://www.worldcard.mastercard.com/content/world/ap/en/experiences-offers/travel.html
I have not used any of the benifits yet.
I agree using the miles requires a very flexible schedule and very early planning. I scheduled round trip air to Costa Rica (From Fort lauderdale, FL) in May of 2015 for 5,000 points per person. (value of $300/person, but requires a fee of $23/person each way making it worth $254 per 5000 miles or about 5 cents per mile) The available 2500 point flights made me either go a day shorter or a day longer than I wanted to go, but for 5000 miles and $46 for the round trip, I made it work.

Spirit takes a very very long time to apply the 15,000 bonus, because it has been almost 2 months since I have started using the card. Other credit card companies for example Barclay automatically updates miles and bonuses. This is not a customer friendly company, because you can never get to speak to a customer service rep about the issues, you only speak with the machine...terrible...horrible. If you ask me, try Barclay arrival card, their services are much better, and they offer similar benefits

Ok for the Cheapo.... If you work the Math the signup bonus equals about $124 ish, enough for a 1 way ticket with a small bag and no drink.... Assuming you travel during a peak time of the year like summer. I est. 121 miles are equal to about $1 spent at Spirit. After the 1st year you would have to charge about $3600 to cover the $59 annual fee. Still not a bad deal if you don't mind dealing with Spirit Airlines and you are willing to make sure you make charges every 90 days or less (to avoid loosing your earned miles). Some points with Spirit airlines.. You can NOT cancel your ticket after 24 hr without paying a huge fine.... Generally about $115 or more dollars.... You have to pay to get an assigned seat. $5 to $15 or you get what you get (not a big deal), You have to pay for baggage... Anything bigger than a purse or small backpack... Don't try to bring you 20" roll on bag to the gate without paying ahead of time... They'll charge you $100 after they start loading the plane. If your not sure about your bad, ask at the gate attendant before they start loading... Carry on or Check in bags are about $47 +/- a few bucks each way if purchased a head of time. Add it when you purchase your flight. You can print your boarding pass at a kiosk by the baggage check-in or online. Don't do it at the counter or they will charge you. Don't call or they will charge you more, just make the changes online. I est. you can earn something around 1.5% with this card, but you need to make sure Spirit has flights that you would like to take. There are not many places I would fly from this airline. Not sure I would want to take a long fight, but the short ones are alright. I figured I would try the card out for a year and see how it goes. Off season you can fly for much less and you could easily get a round trip or several round trip tickets with the 15000 miles. Good luck and read the fine print on Spirit's website. Family and Friends if you're interested then let me know, I can send you the 15k bonus info and I'll make 5k for my troubles. Thanks for reading..

OK I am Cheapo with you bro. I know all these rules and I got my husband the 15K bonus and me the 5K bonus, so now we will have enough miles for award travel to Montego Bay and Cancun with miles still left over!

this is the worst card I have ever had. I pay my bill on line with auto pay and my card is still denied when I try to use it. I am paying this off and NEVER using it again. I will never recommend it to anyone, not even my dog. that bank of America sucks too, since there the ones who control it.

Not a fan. I got the card almost eight months ago. I received my 2,500 mile in-flight application bonus after about a month. I received the card in the mail about another month later I used the card the immediately upon receiving it, and to date, my 15,000 bonus miles have not been credited to my account. It's difficult to find information on their website. It doesn't live up to the hype they give it.

Maybe the glitch is that they don't credit the 15K sign-up bonus if you get the in-flight bonus. I did not sign up for the in-flight, so can't speak to that. I can speak to having received the 15K miles after making one purchased within 90 days of the receipt of the card - which is the agreement.

15,000 points are supposed to be applied after the 1st purchase, not the 1st year. From the fine print of their brochure "You will receive 15,000 bonus miles after first use of the account for a purchase (that is not later returned or rescinded) that is posted after account opening. These bonus miles will be awarded at the close of your billing statement after you make your first purchase."

The terms of service state the 15,000 sign up bonus is applied after about one year (after you pay your first $59 annual fee). Also, from comments I've read you'll want to book your trip 180+ days in advance. Otherwise, they charge tiered fee for booking trips, which increases the closer it gets to the day you wish to fly.

If you are getting this card base on the advertisement that you will get some free flights off the bat, keep in mind this info. Only on certain dates out of the calendar year will you be able to fly at 5,000 pts round trip. Otherwise it cost 50,000 pts to fly on any given date. The initial points they give you is not enough to fly on any given date. Only get this card if your trips are flexible.

I have had the Spirit Airlines Credit Card for about 8 months now. We use this credit card as our main method of payment to earn miles. So far, we have booked a number of flights and have saved a lot of money. There are some negatives, however. Some flights cost an insane amount of miles and are not worth using your points. Also, there are blackout dates where you cannot book a flight. Overall, If you don't have very specific flight plans and are able to book in advance, you can really take advantage of this card.

For frequent flyers of the Spirit Airline Services, the Spirit Airline Credit Card is a must have. There's no annual fee for the first year, but there's different amounts of payments for tier levels. The Rewards are miles based, with an initial bonus of 15,000 miles and a 2 miles/$1 for base/max earn. You can redeem round trip rewards after 5,000 miles and no blackout dates for flight redemption. The Purchase, Balance Transfers, and Cash Advances are on par with other cards such as the SouthWest Airlines. The Paperless Statement Option and online alerts are something of a plus, but it's a guarantee option nowadays with most other cards. Comparing this to the Southwest Airlines Card, it is seriously lacking to Southwest's 50,000 bonus points options, but Southwest is points based instead of mileage based.

Spirit has slowly become my favorite air line based on the fact that the prices they offer cant be beat by anyone and now that I have the
Spirit Airlines Credit Card things have gotten even better. Not only do you earn miles with this amazing card every time you spend a dollar but you are given 15,000 points just for signing up. Another major plus to this card is by having it you are entered in Spirits 9 dollar club which lets you travel on select flights for 9 dollars plus a baggage fee. That cant be beat by any other airline.

Spirit Airlines' card is definitely useful for those who fly quite often and would encourage me to use their airline if I had the card. It does come with a high interest rate at 16-19%, and the transfer rate for balances is 4%. However, the benefits you reap when you fly is extremely useful. The card gives two miles per dollar spent which is an unbelievable deal for using a credit card you already planned to use. The 15,000 bonus miles with the first major purchase is also phenomenal, as that's enough for a few business trips, and every $1,000 spent results in another 2,000 miles. For anyone who needs to fly, this card is a perfect fit!

The Spirit Airlines Credit Card is (obviously) a flight rewards card, and that's all it really has to offer, but it does it well. For example, its 4% fee on balance transfers is a bit higher than normal, and the minimum regular interest rate of over 16% is a bit hefty, even for a rewards card. However, if you are looking to fly a lot and use this card to pay for it, you will get what you are looking for out of the Spirit Airlines Credit Card. This card has annual bonuses, not just one-time for people who use it a lot, and also double rates on points, you get two miles per dollar. There are no limits on your miles, and you don't even need perfect credit to obtain this frequent flyer card. Also, this card is for the long term with no intro rates on balance transfers...I'll take my barebones Oklahoma State Alumni Card for the most part.

I have very mixed feelings about the Spirit Airlines card. On one hand I do think it offers good rewards compared to the cards of other airlines. You get two miles for every dollar you spend, which is right up there with the best cards. You can also get 15,000 bonus miles after your first purchase. All of this sounds great, but just remember that Spirit is no the most costumer friendly company around. They were rather unclear about the requirements to get, and keep the bonus miles. You must make a purchase with the card every month to do so. This is no problem for me, it just was not clearly explained to me when I was applying for the card. There is also a annual fee of $60. This is a little annoying, but if you use the card enough to earn some free flights, $60 is nothing to complain about.

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We work hard to show you up-to-date product terms, however, this information does not originate from us and thus, we do not guarantee its accuracy. When you click "Apply Now" you will be directed to the offering institution's website. In addition, keep in mind that actual rates and other information may vary for a number of reasons including the applicant's' creditworthiness and differences between an individual's situation and the criteria/assumptions used to generate the information displayed. Before submitting an application, always verify all terms and conditions with the offering institution. Please let us know if you notice any differences.

Ad Disclosure: Offers originating from paying advertisers are noted as “Sponsored” at the top of this page. Advertising may impact how and where offers appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). At WalletHub we try to present a wide array of offers, but our offers do not represent all financial services companies or products.

Irrespective of whether an offering institution is a paid advertiser, the presence of offer information on WalletHub does not constitute a referral or endorsement of the institution by us or vice versa. Furthermore, offers have not been reviewed or approved by the offering institution. Information is displayed first and foremost to help consumers make better decisions.

Editorial Disclaimer: Editorial and user-generated content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. In addition, it is not issuer’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.